Steve and Kammie and the other ones too.: Halloween

Halloween in Scotland was a little different then I was expecting. When we first got here, I wasn't even sure that they celebrated it. But when I asked our friend Olivia about it she told me that not only do they celebrate it, but that Halloween is actually a Scottish Holiday that America kind of took over. We commercialize it more in the States, so its not quite so crazy over here, but they definitely celebrate it.

If you read my previous blog you saw that Rhys already celebrated a little by going to the Halloween Disco. Well, our Ward wasn't doing any kind of "Trunk-or-treat" because there just aren't enough kids in the Ward to make it worth the effort. We were however, invited to another Wards Halloween party on Saturday night because they had a lot more kids and were having one.

Of course we took the boys and it ended up being a lot of fun. A few families in the Ward were given rooms to decorate and do an activity in and so we took the boys around to all the rooms. One of them they decorated biscuits into pumpkins. (frosted cookies) Another one they had to draw their face on a paper with their eyes closed. Then they got to hit the ghost to get some candy to fall out of it. Then they got to go visit a pirate and tell a joke to get a part of his treasure. I think the boys favorite part was reaching into a pumpkin full of fake worms to search for fake insects. If you found one then you got a chocolate apple and for some reason those were a huge hit with the boys. Rhys didn't hesitate and stuck his hand right in. Gavin was intrigued until he actually touched it. Then I ended up having to reach in for him. The guy was really nice though, and still let Gavin have his apple.

The boys also got to eat a donut off a string without using their hands. Rhys was able to do it with no problems.. other then he was laughing a little bit. Gavin however got scared when the donut would get close to his face. He eventually just reached up and grabbed it down. I'm just glad he was trying to do things with Rhys.

A bunch of people brought food so we got to eat some yummy stuff. And of course all the kids ran around the Cultural Hall like there was no tomorrow. Rhys discovered the balloons and was in heaven. Gavin ended up finding a soccer ball and kicking it around. They were both really cute and I was happy to have a reason to get them both dressed up.

On actual Halloween there wasn't much going on except Steven had the day off from School which was wonderful. We also ended up getting our new laptop (Or more accurately my new laptop since its not a Mac and Steven doesn't like them as much) and so that was fun. Steven and I got to play some WoW together in the spirit of Halloween. (I know... we're kind of nerds.)

We weren't sure whether we should take the boys out Trick-or-treating or not. Olivia told us that some people do, but its just not very common. We didn't want to tell them we were going and then have them disappointed when no one opened their door for them. Then when I picked up Rhys from School I overheard some mom's talking about how they weren't going to go out because they didn't when they were little and they just didn't think it was necessary. Steven and I ended up deciding that if we saw any kids out trick-or-treating we would take the boys, but if not we would stay in. We didn't even see one kid, so we just stayed in. We were prepared though and had bought a bag of candy for them to still get to eat. Luckily Rhys is such a good boy and when we explained that Scotland was different and so we weren't going Trick-or-treating he just said okay and that was that. I was really proud of him.

We still head our traditional dinner of chilli. We usually get Tamales too, but we couldn't find them anywhere. We also had donuts, which the boys loves. We ended the evening watching a classic Halloween Movie, Hocus Pocus. It was just Steven and me, but it was fun. We didn't want to scare the boys. All in all, it was a fun time.

The boys in their costumes.